…and we’re off! City Art Lab Spring 2014 begins!

City Art Lab is off to a brilliant start! Participants have been divided into two groups “Social Media” and “Identity”. Throughout the program students are to explore, scrutinize, question and define how these themes are relevant to themselves, each other and the greater community.

This past week students delved right into these concepts through various brainstorming activities. The “Identity” team looked at its definition through the fun and timeless “exquisite corpse” drawing exercise. Invented by Surrealists, players are to draw on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part image, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. Once the paper has reached its end the piece is unfolded and revealed is one odd creature. Besides it’s amusing and enjoyable nature, the exquisite corpse project created a larger opportunity for students to discuss how one’s identity is affected by how others perceive parts of them. One’s past experiences and associations can force another individual to “draw” conclusions about who they are, shaping their identity, similar to how the line work left behind from one artist was interpreted different by the next artist, and in the end, a new identity was created all together.

In correlation, the Social Media team explored how others preconceived notions could effect and shape one’s identity as well. Students created multiple “mind maps”, investigating their identity in everyday life vs their identity online. Participants found it genuinely difficult to define who they were online. In order to understand your online identity, you have to look at how others may evaluate the posts you are presenting, and to understand that, the first step is evaluating how you judge individuals by what they post; not an easy task but they rose to the occasion. We are excited to see how these brainstorming activities transform into fully realized art works…

Stay tuned!

P.S. There are still a few spots open! If you know of any high-school students interested please contact ccnycityartlab@gmail.com.